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March 23, 2022 | International, Aerospace

Thales remporte avec CS Group un appel d'offres de la DGA pour la lutte anti-drones

D'après Les Echos, la Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) a sélectionné l'offre de CS Group associé à Thales pour équiper la France d'une lutte anti-drones performante à l'horizon des Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024. Selon son appel d'offres, le ministère des Armées envisage de consacrer un budget de 350 M€ sur dix ans à la lutte anti-drones.

Les Echos du 22 mars

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  • Defense Innovation Unit issues contract for unmanned orbital outpost

    July 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    Defense Innovation Unit issues contract for unmanned orbital outpost

    Nathan Strout The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded Sierra Nevada Corporation a contract to build an orbital laboratory that would serve as a kind of unmanned space station, the company announced July 14. The unmanned orbital outpost will be placed in low Earth orbit to be used for experiments and demonstrations. The autonomous, free flying vehicle will be able to host payloads and support space assembly and manufacturing, microgravity experimentation, logistics, training, testing and evaluations. Under the contract, Sierra Nevada Corporation will repurpose their Shooting Star transport vehicle into a scalable, autonomous space station that can be used for experiments and demonstrations. The Shooting Star vehicle is a 16-foot attachment to the company's Dream Chaser space plane that was developed for NASA Commercial Resupply Services 2 missions. The vehicle was initially designed to provide extra payload storage and cargo disposal upon re-entry. “We're excited by the multi-mission nature of Shooting Star,” Fatih Ozmen, SNC's chief executive, said in a statement. “It was originally developed for NASA resupply missions to the International Space Station, and since then we keep identifying new capabilities and solutions it offers to a wide variety of customers.” The company's press release notes that while the initial orbital outpost will operate in LEO, future orbits could be placed in other orbits, including cislunar. “The current Shooting Star is already designed with significant capabilities for an orbital outpost and by adding only a few components we are able to meet Department of Defense needs.” added Steve Lindsey, senior vice president of strategy for SNC's space systems. “We are proud to offer our transport vehicle to DoD as a free-flying destination for experimentation and testing, expanding beyond its current payload service capabilities for Dream Chaser cargo missions.” According to the original DIU solicitation released June 2019, orbital outposts will need to be established in low Earth orbit within 24 months of the award. A DIU spokesperson told C4ISRNET at the time that the “the prototype will explore the military utility of exclusive DoD access to an unmanned orbital platform in order to perform experiments with no risk to human crew or other non-DOD payloads.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/16/defense-innovation-unit-issues-contract-for-unmanned-orbital-outpost/

  • French, German, Spanish Air Force Chiefs Review Future Combat Air Systems Project

    June 21, 2021 | International, Aerospace

    French, German, Spanish Air Force Chiefs Review Future Combat Air Systems Project

    French, German, Spanish Air Force Chiefs Review Future Combat Air Systems Project

  • The Pentagon wants help for its satellites to talk to each other

    January 16, 2020 | International, C4ISR

    The Pentagon wants help for its satellites to talk to each other

    By: Nathan Strout The Space Development Agency wants its satellites to be able to easily talk to each other and is considering using optical intersatellite links for communications within its future low earth orbit space architecture. Now, the organization is looking for industry's help on what standards should be used for those links. On Jan. 15, the agency issued a request for information to industry to inform its attempt to establish an Optical Intersatellite Link Open Standard. Most satellites don't speak with each other directly. Instead, they utilize radio-frequency communications with a ground station to relay communications between satellites. Some satellites, however, are able to use optical links to provide direct communications between satellites without a ground station acting as an intermediary. The SDA wants to use this technology for what it calls its “transport layer,” the backbone of its plans for a new space architecture in low earth orbit. The SDA was established in March 2019 to design the Department of Defense's future threat-driven space architecture, a setup it has since defined as a multi-layered constellation of hundreds of small satellites providing several capabilities from LEO. The SDA will not be directly responsible for every layer or constellation within the architecture — most notably, the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor is being developed primarily by the Missile Defense Agency — however, the SDA will be the agency in charge of integrating those various efforts into a single architecture. Key to the entire enterprise is the Tracking Layer, a family of satellites in low earth orbit that will facilitate the flow of data between satellites in orbit and between satellites and the ground. The Transport Layer will be essential in connecting the various sensors and capabilities on orbit with weapons systems on the ground or in the air. In order to build that capability, the SDA plans to use Optical Intersatellite Links. The optical links will also need to provide range estimates of the distance between satellites in orbit and between satellites and the ground to within a meter in order to provide highly precise timing and positional data for the constellation. The SDA also envisions each satellite utilizing a chip-scale atomic clock as well as GPS signals. The problem is that there are currently no industry standards for those links. To ensure the interoperability of various vendor technologies used for those links, the SDA wants to establish that standard, and it's asking industry for help. Responses are due by Feb. 5. More specifics about what the SDA is considering for its standards is available on beta.sam.gov. According to the request, the SDA plans to issue a solicitation for Tranche 0 of the Transportation Layer in Spring 2020, with additional solicitations for the other capability layers to follow in the summer. That first tranche, known as the war fighter immersion tranche, will consist “of tens of satellites providing periodic, regional sensing and data transport capabilities, including the capability to detect hypersonic glide vehicles and to disseminate time sensitive targeting solutions over tactical data links.” According to the agency, that initial tranche could be delivered as early as fiscal year 2022 https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/01/16/the-pentagon-wants-help-for-its-satellites-to-talk-to-each-other/

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